THE rain came pouring down.

Ever since they followed Gavin to the construction site near the local surf shop—Eden had worked at the surf shop when she was fifteen or so, and knew exactly where Ward and Gavin would be meeting—the group had been caught in the pouring rain, waiting for some sort of action to take place.

Now, Eden didn't entirely hate the rain. It was rather peaceful—if you weren't standing in it wearing shorts and a t-shirt. For once in her life, Eden didn't have a bathing suit underneath her clothes, and was now forced to stand soaking wet and slightly cold, given it was night.

The four teens were watching the construction site from a nearby fence, peeking over to make sure they were still hidden. Eden had to wipe water from her eyes every few minutes, and was ready to just go home—her white shirt was stuck to her figure and she had soggy jeans.  Thank God she wore waterproof mascara.

Thunder booms and lighting strikes around them, and Eden blinks water from her lashes, praying that Gavin and Ward get whatever they had to do done so that she and her friends could leave with the information before they developed a cold. 

"Nice camera. Where'd you dig up that relic?" JJ speaks up, eyeing up the bulky camera Pope held in his hands. Eden had noticed him pull it out in the car, but hadn't questioned much other than sending a small side eye, given that Pope was Pope. "Why don't you just use your phone?"

"His phones in Gavin's car, dumbass." Eden reminds, standing on her tippy toes to get a better view of above the fence to see if the two men had arrived yet. 

Pope turns his head to meet JJ's gaze, snapping, "Well, first of all, I like my antique electronics. And second of all, this is a telephoto. It allows me to get a close image from far away." 

"Only you would own one of those, Pope." the Bexley sighs.

Kiara nods in agreement, "Lord of the dorks."

"For definitive proof of witness payoff, we're gonna need quality glass." the Heyward boy rolls his eyes for a minute before they widen, "There he is!"

Eden looks through the rain to see a familiar figure running through the rain—Ward Cameron.  He's holding a duffel bag in his grasp as he sprints through the damp, puddled filled roads towards the construction site.

"Yo, get down." JJ says, and the four teenagers crouch down further, wanting to make sure Ward had a lesser chance of spotting them. The last thing Eden wanted was for them to be caught—this was their one chance at getting John B.'s name cleared.

Another man runs towards the construction site as Ward does—Gavin.

"And there's Gavin." Pope confirms. He puts the camera up to his eye, "Where are you going you son of a bitch?" The two men go inside the construction site, and the camera-holding boy starts to panic because they're out of frame now, "No, no, no, no. I'm losing him. Shit. Where's he going?"

"Hold on." JJ disappears from Eden's side, causing her to whip her head back around in his direction. He squeezes into a small alleyway which the four had entered from, and looks around for a moment before ushering his friends to follow, "Yo! Hey. I found something. Come here."

The three follows after him, confused.

"Gotta go up top." the blonde quietly states, pointing upwards before leading his friends to a ladder which would take them to the roof of a nearby building. He starts to scale the ladder while his friends proudly admire his ability to find a decent solution to their problem, unlike earlier.

Eden smiles as she places her hands on the rods of the rusty, wet, ladder, "Not bad, J."

Pope nods, "That'll work."

"Hurry." Kiara encourages, and Eden works faster to climb up the ladder rungs. "Don't wanna miss anything."

The four eventually all get on top of the building, and quickly race over to the edge of the roof, crouching down to stay low, as well as to get the best view possible for Pope's telephoto. The rain is even worse, given there's no coverage like there is slightly below, but they don't have the option to stay dry if they want this information.

Pope pulls the telephoto out of the protection he'd been giving it under his jacket, and places it on his eye. 

"You rolling, Pope?" JJ asks.

Kiara ads, "Are you getting it."

"Yeah." the filming boy nods, "Yeah, I see them."

"Good." Eden says, smearing water away from her eyes—she's sure her mascara has given up at this point with how much wiping she's had to do. She can barely see through the pouring rain, and prays that Pope's old camera holds up in the weather, "Because I can't see shit."

Everyone stays quiet for a few moments, the only sound being the splattering of rain against the pavement.

"Ward just handed Gavin something." Pope informs. He was the messenger, given he was the only one who had any chance at seeing the shady scene across from them. "I think it's a duffel bag."

JJ turns to look at his friends for a split second, water dripping off his skin, "Guys, I think this is a payoff."

"Given that Gavin has the gun, I'm sure Ward's willing to give anything to make sure he stays safe." Eden nods along. Ward would do anything if it kept his name safe, and his reputation safer—she was sure he was giving money, or trying to bargain his way out of this.

"Gavin doesn't look happy about something. It looks like he's yelling at Ward." Pope says, and the three other teens squint even harder to try and make out what was happening themselves. Eden puts a hand in front of her eye-line to try and shield the downpour, though it doesn't help that much.

Kiara's voice is raspy as she asks, "Why?"

"I don't know, but he sure looks mad."

It's quiet again for a few moments, but a sudden movement within the construction site catches Eden's eye. She watches the best she can as Ward and Gavin start to tackle one another, fighting like two high school boys on the football field—she's watched enough of John B. and JJ's play fights to know how this was gonna go.

"Shit."

"Woah, woah, woah."

"What's going on?" Kiara asks over the commotion.

Eden blinks away water, "I think they're fighting over something?"

"They're really going at it." JJ mutters.

Pope narrates, "Ward's kickin' the shit out of Gavin."

"What are the fighting over?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to see."

"What's going on?"

Through the lens of the camera, Pope's eyes widened, "Holy shit. Ward's got a gun."

Kiara's voice is shaky, "I bet that's the murder weapon."

"It's got his and Rafe's fingerprints on it now." Eden slightly smirks, even though it's not necessarily great that the Cameron man has the weapon in his hands. "They're so screwed—" 

A deafening bang sounded through the pattering of the rain, disturbing the night.

Eden feels her heart freeze in her chest, and her breath hitches with an abrupt gasp.  She slides down, back pressed against the wall, hand pressed against her mouth in shock. Her mind is racing. 

"Holy fuck, that did not just happen." the Bexley can't believe it. She just watched Ward shoot a man. She just watched Ward Cameron shoot a man who knew the truth with the same gun his son used to kill the Sheriff. "Guys, we did not just see that!"

"Oh my God." Pope's chest is rising up and down, "Oh my God. What the hell."

Kiara's voice is full of fear, "No, no, no, no. That did not just happen. What is going on?" 

"Pope." JJ breathes, turning his head slightly, "Tell me you just got that."

"Enough to put this asshole away for life." the Heyward says firmly. He's not pressed against the wall anymore, and holds the camera up to his eyes, continuing to film what was happening in the construction site.

Another gunshot pierces through the air, and Eden still has a hand over her mouth as she gets back on her knees. She watches as the two men fall to the floor, as the gun slips from Ward's grasp, as it falls onto the flooded ground below; away from him.

"This is freaking crazy." Pope says, as if this were simply a movie scene. As if they hadn't just witnessed Ward Cameron shoot his pilot. 

Eden worryingly watches the scene, noticing Gavin's limp figure against the floor of the construction site—her motherly instinct was coming through, and she started to grow concerned as the man stayed down. Ward goes back over to his pilot, but then slams his fist against the ground.

"Pope...." Eden trails off, almost scared to admit what they'd just captured on film. "I think—I think Ward just killed Gavin."

"Oh no. Get down—get down!" Pope instructs as the Cameron man peers outside the construction site, looking for the gun. Eden doesn't need to be told twice before ducking downwards, water splashing against her already dampened jeans and droplet filled skin. "Holy shit." 

"I think we should go right now." JJ states. They have enough to get Ward in trouble. He crouches upwards and looks at Pope, who while still ducked down, has the camera up and filming. "Pope, you have enough, right?"

"Yeah."

Eden begins to push herself up, "Okay, let's get out of here before something—"

"Hold on, he's coming out." the Heyward suddenly interjects. The group pauses and waits for the boy to give them the signal to start leaving. Pope stands up and is watching Ward through the camera, "There he goes. I think he's looking for the gun." Pause. "I think the gun just went down the drain. He's looking for it."

The rain pours even harder as they watch, tense and full of adrenaline.

"Hey. He's looking for the gun." Pope says.

Kiara suddenly starts to stand up, "Hold this."

JJ's eyes are wide as he looks at the girl, "What are you doing, Kie."

"Kie—" Eden grits, but she gets cut off by the piercing yell of her friend.

"What is wrong with you!" Kiara is standing in the rain, not trying to hide her figure upon the roof. She stares at the man down by the flooded drain, clearly trying to win over his attention, "Murderer!" 

"Kiara, no! Shut the fuck up!" Eden tries to stay quiet, tugging at the material of Kiara's soggy t-shirt.

JJ scrambles to his feet and crawls a hand up Kie's figure, slapping it over her lips. His other arm wraps around her waist, and he grunts, "Get down."

The blonde drags the curly haired girl down to the roof again, but she continues to scream at the top of her lungs, words breaking past JJ's hand. Eden sends her the most pissed off glare she could summon and begins to rant off to the Carrera because why the fuck would she think that was a good idea.

"Kiara Carrera why the fuck would you do that? You're gonna get us caught!" Eden says through gritted teeth, trying to figure out why her friend would yell out like that. "This is our one shot at getting John B.'s name cleared and you wanna fucking blow it? You want to yell at Ward? Do it on your own time. I'll clear John's name by myself."

Pope seems upset, "Kiara, are you crazy."

"What are you doing?" JJ asks, "What are you doing?"

Kiara doesn't seem to care about what she did, "I don't care if he hears me. He's a murderer."

"Yeah, and he's gonna murder us, Kie." the Maybank retorts.

"Jesus, Kiara." Eden groans.

Pope urgently speaks up, "Guys, he sees us."

"Are you serious?"

Kiara lets out some sort of whimper and Eden clenches her fists, pissed that they'd been caught—all thanks to Kiara Carrera. "Goddammit, Kiara. No more bracelets ever for this."

"Come on. We gotta go. He's coming."

"We gotta get the hell outta here."

The four rush back towards their exit, the ladder. 

Being the quickest, Eden climbs down as quickly as she can—she wishes she could climb down the slippery rungs faster—and jumps off, skipping three rungs with a small thud against the mushy ground. She looks at her friends through the rain and ushers Pope down, wanting to make sure they get the footage down, "Come on, Pope!"

"I'm going, I'm going."

Once Pope had climbed down a few rungs, JJ started going down.  The Heyward boy takes his time, given that the rungs are all wet and slippery, as well as the camera he was trying to keep hold of, meaning the Maybank can't move as fast as he can, slowing everyone down.

Because of this, Kiara miscalculates when to put her foot down, and ends up stomping down on the top of JJ's hand, which lay on the first rung, assuming he was already far enough down.

Instinctively, JJ lets out a yelp and pulls away his hand, "Ah! My hand!"

Now one handed on the ladder, JJ loses his grip and his remaining hand slides off the rung, causing him to lose balance. The boy comes falling off the ladder, managing to kick Pope as he did, causing the Heyward boy to come crashing down to.

Pope's arm whips around as he falls, and he manages to hit Eden in the face, camera flying out of his grip and into the grass with a thump at the impact.

"Goddammit, my face!" Eden cries, slightly stumbling backwards at the impact, her hands cupping the spot where she'd been hit—her right eye stings, and she's sure she'll have a new bruise or a black eye of sorts. JJ and Pope both groan on the ground from their falls. 

"Sorry." Kiara calls from the top of the ladder, "So sorry."

"No, no, no, no, no." 

Eden looks forward, still cringing at the stinging in her eye. She sees Pope on his knees, holding up his camera and by the looks of it, it's broken. She wants to punch the ground. "Fuck, Pope, don't tell me we lost everything."

"You're kidding me." JJ's voice is slightly raised in anger. He has mud on the side of his face as he gets closer to Pope, "You fumbled it?"

"Eden was in the way of my fall." Pope argued.

Eden scoffed, "You hit me in the face!"

"He kicked me in the face!" the Heyward glares at JJ.

JJ gestures at Kiara and seethes, "She stepped on my hand!"

"I was trying to hurry!" Kiara exclaimed.

Eden loved her friends, she truly did, but this is what she hated about spending days on end surrounded by them. Ultimately, they all just got to the stage where they started getting fussy and pissed off with one another like they were now.  All the Bexley wanted was to go home and go to sleep.

"You know what? I don't even care right now." Eden yells over her friends. All of them went quiet and looked at her—when Eden yelled, something up and you listened. "Can we please save our arguing for the car and get the hell out of here?" Everyone meekly nods and she adds, "Thank you."

The four Pogues hop over the fence, barely missing Ward and the blood that was now on his hands.

After a few minutes of jogging, the group of friends made it back to the 4Runner. Eden thrusts open the door and slides into the vehicle, happy to be out of the rain, though still holding some pent up anger over Kiara.

For a second or two, the only sound is the panting and harsh breathing of the four, before it's broken by JJ, who's voice grows until he's yelling, "Could someone fill me in on what the frick just happened!"

Pope let's on an frustrated groan. Eden sharply inhales, trying her best to stay the mediator rather than yelling. 

 "Holy crap. I can't believe it. Wait, what were they fighting over?"

Pope fumbles for a moment before recalling the item, "Uh....it was....it was a gun, the one that Rafe used. He must have kept it."

"Of course! Of course! The murder weapon!"

Kiara jabs her fingers against her phone, voice raspy and full of tears, "Pick up, pick up, pick up."

Eden hears this, and leans forward, cringing at the soggy feeling on her jeans upon her skin. She's still mad at Kiara, but she tries to stay relatively calm as she asks the panicked girl, "Kiara who are you calling?"

"Who do you think?"

"The cops?" Eden baffles. 

"Who else am I supposed to call?!"

"Why would you call the police? That's Ward!" JJ roars.

The three start to shout at one another, and Eden has her hands on the back of her temples, trying to stay calm. She wishes that John B. was here to keep the Pogues under control, and she wishes that she could go home. 

"Sheriff's Office." 

"Shut up!" Kiara screams, before holding the speaker of her phone up to her face. Her voice is torn and raspy but she still states her case as firmly as possible, "Hello? Hi, somebody's been shot at the—at the Grand Street construction site!"

"Ma'am—"

"You guys need to hurry because he's dying, and I—I don't know if he's already dead or not, but you guys need to hurry, please." The Carrera girl ignores the man on the other end asking for her location and hangs up, praying that they got their sooner than later.

JJ speaks up quickly, "We gotta get out. We're sitting ducks right now."

"We can't stay here." Pope agrees.

"What do you want me to do?" Kiara asks, panicked.

Eden sighs, "Just drive. Please, just get out of here."

The body was gone.

Having heard the panicked voice on the other end, the Kildare County Sheriff Department arrived at the scene within a few minutes, an exasperated Shoupe exiting his cruiser when he spotted the familiar teenagers, who'd been found at the scene of the last few crimes or mishaps the town has taken over the past few weeks.

Except, when the group of four led him into the construction site, no crime had been committed in the slightest. Gavin's body was nowhere to be found. 

So, now the Pogues stand in a line—Kiara taking the reigns and explaining the story, Pope holding his damaged telephoto as if that would help any of their evidence come back, Eden fiddling with her bracelets, and JJ pacing back and forth with his hands on his neck—retelling the events to Shoupe as best they could, trying to convince him that this wasn't a sick joke. 

"Look, it was right here, and this is where that maniac claimed his next victim. Right here." the Carrera girl rushes, pointing her finger to the ground where Gavin had laid, dead, a little over half an hour ago.

"Uh-huh. His next victim." Shoupe didn't seem convinced of the story, but he continued to question as Kiara gave a nod. "Right. How long ago did you say it happened?"

JJ crouches down as the man speaks and presses his hands lightly against the wood flooring where Gavin had been. He rubs his fingers together, and is almost confused when only water remains—he expected blood, a sign of struggle, anything. 

Straightening back up, the Maybank admits, "Forty-five minutes ago, Shoupe."

The interim sheriff scribbles something down on his notepad, "Okay. And so, Ward Cameron just popped one off and shot him."

Kiara nods, "Yes."

"Execution style? And then cleaned it all up in forty-five minutes?"

Eden looks at all of her friends before replying, "Pretty much, yeah."

"Obviously." Pope blurted. 

Kiara feebly admitted, "We filmed the whole thing."

The comment seemed to have finally piqued Shoupe's interest, "You filmed it?"

"Yes, but we can't show it to you because I stepped on JJ's hand, and then he kicked Pope, and then Pope hit Eden in the face, and the impact caused him to drop the camera 'cause it's a piece of shit and it broke!" Kiara sounds desperate and exasperated.

"Officer, this is a telephoto—" the Heyward boy begins, wanting to get it out that this broken item was not just a regular camera. "—and we needed to get a long-distance image, and....and I fell, and it broke, so the video is basically unusable." Pope notices the way Shoupe shakes his head, interest clearly failing to stay, "But...but we were there, and we're wit—"

Shoupe cuts him off, brows raised. "So the dog ate your homework?"

Eden sighed, "Shoupe, I know it sounds crazy and I know we haven't done much to make you believe us these past few weeks, and I know that we don't have any evidence whatsoever, but—"

"Look," Shoupe sharply cuts the Bexley off, and she stops, because she knows Shoupe has already made his decision—this was all just a waste of his time. "I don't know what you kids expect me to do with this. You drag me out here in the middle of the night for a whole lot of nothin' except for some—"

Kiara argues, "Not it's not. No, it's not nothing—"

"—except for some crazy stories that Ward Cameron's out on a random killing spree!"

"Shoupe, my best friend died." Eden can't reveal that John B. and Sarah were alive, so she instead decided to play the part of the grieving best friend—as she had been. "Do you really think I would make something like this up? That I would just lie and say Gavin was dead for the fun of it?"

"I'm not saying your necessarily lying, I'm just saying this is one hell of an accusation for you kids to be making based on your jack shit evidence—"

Eden is starting to grow upset with Shoupe. This past month has really shown her how much the police trusted the South side of the island—the Pogues, in particular. She gets that they've caused trouble in the past, but that was always being caught drinking underage, or Kiara spray painting the Cameron's fencing. It was never at the scene of a murder.

They would never lie about this, or just do it for fun.

"I get we're bad kids, Shoupe, but don't you think it's suspicious? Suspicious that Gavin, the only other person to give a statement; the only other person on the tarmac besides Ward, Sarah, John B., Rafe, and Peterkin is now dead?  Then again, you never seem to side with us even if Ward seems suspicious so.....is it really all that surprising that you're choosing to ignore us just because we don't have more than our word to prove that Ward Cameron shot Gavin Barnstead dead? You certainly ignored John B.'s pleads for help—"

"Eden, that's enough." Shoupe knows that she won't stop, but he doesn't feel like listening to to her call him an ignoring jackass who only cares for the rich—he's not a backwards Robin Hood. "You guys have no evidence towards this random killing spree—"

JJ yanks his hat off, "We're not making this up, Shoupe!"

"It's not a random killing spree." Pope states, "Gavin was his pilot! Okay, he was paying him hush money because he was there on the tarmac that day."

Kiara continued, "Gavin was blackmailing Ward because he had the gun that Rafe used to kill Peterkin."

"And then he called him here and tried to pay him off but it wasn't enough, and then—so he shot him." JJ finished, sending Shoupe the most serious look he could muster. 

"Gavin collapsed right here and then the gun fell into a train. Ward fled the scene." Eden adds, wrapping her arms around herself.

Shoupe remained silent for a moment before his eyes scanned over each teen, "How do you know that?"

"Pope did this thing with his phone." Kiara continued to ramble, gesturing to the boy as she spoke, "He, like, put it in his car and—"

The Heyward finishes, "I heard their whole conversation."

Shoupe pointed an accusatory finger at the Heyward, "You wiretapped him?"

"Is that bad?" Kiara asks, JJ also beginning to speak—Eden's sure he would have tried to blame himself rather than get Pope in trouble, yet again.

"Stop. Just stop." Shoupe interjects, "I've had enough." 

The interim-sheriff turned his back and started to walk away, causing all the Pogues to fly into a panic.

"What are you talking about Shoupe? Are you just gonna look the other way again?" JJ yells.

"You ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?" Shoupe retorted. 

Kiara chases him down the stairs, "Why would we make this up?!"

"Shoupe, how many times—Why can't you believe us for once!?"

Shoupe continues to ignore, "Waste of my goddamn time."

"Why would we lie, Shoupe?" Kiara wails desperately, chasing the man out to the street where the other officers await instructions. Blue and red lights reflect off of Eden's face as she follows after the curly haired girl, wanting to stop her yet also wanting her to continue. "I know it sounds crazy. I know that!"

"Alright, there's nothing up there, alright? False alarm. Let's all go home." Shoupe announces to his fellow officers, who send exasperated and slightly upset looks towards the group of teens who were filing out of the construction site. They turn off their lights one by one, and Eden knows hope is getting lost.

Kiara still pleads, "No, no, please don't go home. No, why would we make this up?" the Carrera stops in front of Shoupe's cruiser, still looking as desperate as ever.

Eden sharply inhales, "Shoupe, could you please just do your job for like twenty minutes? You failed John B. and Sarah—do you want to fail Gavin too?"

The words cause Shoupe to whip around, "Hey. I—I know you're upset. And I know you think your friend was innocent."

Kiara cries, "He is!"

"But you weren't there." Shoupe repeated the same words the Bexley had been told over the countless trials she's been too, and speeches she's written in defense of John B.  The words she was told by Rafe mere days ago. Eden's tired of hearing them. "The only other witnesses who are above ground say the exact opposite. Alright? And both of them have a hell of a lot more credibility than any of you right now."

Eden lightly scoffs but what Shoupe's saying is true. She may be Eden Bexley, but her perks certainly didn't apply right now, when her friends had done nothing but deem themselves trouble makers over the past few weeks.

"I saw your little art project on Ward's wall." Shoupe's eyes narrowed at Kiara. Eden recalls the day she was sent a photo from the Carrera of the spray painted phrase of 'Murderer' upon the Cameron's wall. "Do not do that again."

"Oh, come on!" Kie cries.

"Alright? Gonna make things a lot harder for the both of us." Shoupe opened his cruiser door, waving to another car that it was okay to clear out, "Go home."

The cars begin to drive out and Kiara's shoulders sag, "At least....at least look for him! Someone died tonight!"

Shoupe hits the gas, "Get on home to your parents now."

He clears out, leaving the four Pogues alone.

"Fuck you too, Shoupe." Eden mutters. 

The four begin to stalk away, and JJ begins to argue, "I told you this would happen." Eden could sense that a small outburst was about to happen within the group. The Maybank gestures at Pope, "Like you're the one who had to drop the camera."

Kiara defended her boyfriend, though Eden's unsure whether it was because her was her boyfriend or because she just wanted the arguing to stop. "It was your fault!"

"Oh, that was my fault?"

"Yeah, it was your fault!" 

Pope tries to get them to stop, "Guys! Hey!"

"Shut up!"

"Could the two of you stop for five seconds?" Eden loudly interrupts, exasperated. She's tired, she's cold, and she's wet, and all she wants to do is go home. "I get it, we're all pretty upset but playing the blame game isn't going to get us anywhere. We're all at fault for the camera breaking, okay?"

"But, we're not out of this yet." Pope adds, once the Carrera and Maybank fall silent, "We can still go get the gun."

"But for now, let's go home." Eden sighs, starting to walk towards the 4Runner, a small frown etched upon her lips.

Getting John B. cleared was going to be a hell of a lot harder than she expected, but she was going to do it.

mara's misc!

really long chapter but yeah.....

kiara pissed me off so much in this episode.......like WHY WOULD YOU YELL????? DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE CONSQUENCES????? DID YOU THINK ABOUT WHY YOU WERE IN THE RAIN TO BEGIN WITH???? they would have had a camera and evidence if it wasn't for her stupid ass mouth.

kiara carrera hater for life tbh (me and mvybanksss both)

tbh the after show depression is setting in so i'm updating <3 (as well as for my pookie kensie)

i don't have many other comments so....

hope you enjoyed <3 see you back with chapter 33!!